


The Big Lost

by stereomer



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-14
Updated: 2012-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-07 17:12:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereomer/pseuds/stereomer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 'what if' story, going backwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Big Lost

Bert has soaked Bob’s underwear in whiskey again.

It’s the first day of tour and the damage on the bus is like this: there are crumbs liberally sprinkled all over the couch, because Jepha has taken to crushing Saltines in his mouth and then spitting the flakes everywhere. A half-ripped, empty, 24-pack box of Pabst sits in the middle of the lounge. Cans, both crushed and not crushed – probably 24 of them, Bob’s willing to bet – have made their homes on every single available surface. Then there’s Bob’s underwear, stuffed into a handle of Wild Turkey and sitting in the middle of the table like some triumphant victor in the midst of all the garbage that surrounds it. In order to achieve said feat, Bert would have had to take time out of his day to patiently poke the material through the mouth of the bottle with his index finger, over and over again.

This kind of thing doesn’t surprise Bob anymore, but it still annoys the fuck out of him. He’s made a promise to himself that if it ever stops annoying the fuck out of him, he’ll take it as a sign that he’s finally lost his mind, then immediately quit the job and go back to doing house sound at a venue somewhere while self-medicating heavily.

Bob picks up the Wild Turkey. His underwear bobs on the surface like an iceberg with dark blue stripes. He makes his way back out of the bus, kicking at least four cans, and stands on the last step while scanning the parking lot. An unwashed lump of hair is visible in the distance – one with a thin, rod-like body attached under it.

“Hey, you fucker!” Bob yells. He probably doesn’t even use Bert’s name that often anymore; just calls him ‘you fucker’ because it seems much more fitting.

Bert turns and squints, holding a hand up to his forehead. He waves in exaggerated swipes, covering the span of a semicircle. Bob holds the bottle out in front of him and points at it with his other hand, stabbing the air viciously. Bert pauses, then waves again.

“What?” he calls faintly, in that raspy voice that Bob sometimes hears in his nightmares.

Instead of yelling more, Bob hefts the bottle in his grip and launches it in Bert’s general direction. It explodes in a loud shower of liquid, glass, and noise while the underwear flops out rather sluggishly onto the asphalt. Bert blinks, then almost seizes at the sight, arms coming up to his chest in what looks like a T. Rex imitation as he throws his head back and cackles.

Bob watches warily. It occurs to him that this action, him watching warily, may encapsulate the past few years into a neat box of a sentence. Subject, verb, adverb. Who knew it could ever be so easy?

“I hate you,” Bob shouts, but he doesn’t mean it. Not even a little. He might even be saying it because he feels the exact opposite.

He makes a mental note to look into job openings at venues as soon as they have an off day.

Bert spreads his arms and smiles just as wide. “God, I love you, Bob! Look, I even got you a present!”

He gestures, and his figure fades into a blur when a movement catches the corner of Bob’s eye and he turns to look. Someone’s walking toward the bus, bobbing up and down a little with each step in a gait that’s so familiar but unexpected that Bob thinks he’s hallucinating. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone slipped something into his food. He scratches his neck and waits, but rainbows don’t start attacking him or anything like that, so maybe it’s not a hallucination after all.

“Hey,” Bob greets cautiously once the footsteps come to a stop outside the bus doors. The underwear and the whiskey and the killing of Bert are all but forgotten as he stares, feeling a startled sort of smile come over his face.

“Hey yourself,” Frank says, squinting up at Bob from under his hood. His duffel bag is slung over his right shoulder and he’s holding onto it with both hands. He grins, bright and real under the unforgiving afternoon sun. “Surprise, motherfucker.”

 

*

 

Long after Bob has hung up, Frank rolls onto his back, looks down at Bob, and says, “You should do it.”

Bob twitches his finger against his phone and watches it spin around on the coffee table. The TV is still playing, volume too low to be anything but background noise. “I’m thinking about it.”

Frank pushes an arm behind his head as a makeshift pillow. “I think it’d be awesome.”

“You think everything’s awesome,” Bob counters. It’s not actually true, but he says it anyway.

“I’m serious. I think it would make you happy.” Frank wiggles his toes against Bob’s thigh; Bob catches his foot and squeezes it gently. “I want you to be happy. You know?”

“I know.” Bob lets his head drop back until it meets the couch cushions. He stares up at the bus ceiling and tries to imagine how it would all go. If this was what he wanted, if he’d be able to handle it better now, if, if, if.

“You could like, record the album at least. See how it goes.”

“Right.” Bob can feel Frank studying him. He squeezes Frank’s foot again, just to reassure him that he’s not deliberately being short. “That’s actually what I was planning on doing,” he says.

A slow smile spreads over Frank’s face. “Yeah? You’ll do it?”

Bob pauses before saying, “I mean, Bert said he’d call and keep me on the line every time he went to the bathroom until I said yes to doing the album. So I don’t think I have a choice.”

“You really don’t,” Frank agrees.

“But yeah.” Bob curls his free hand against his chin, rubbing his knuckles up and down and feeling the consequences of not shaving for about a week. “Yeah, I think I’ll do it. The album, at least.”

“Dude.” Frank scrambles up. “Really?”

“Yes.” Bob rolls his eyes but he’s smiling a little, becoming surer by the minute. He could try it. It could work. There hasn’t been anything for him to get excited about in awhile, but he feels it now, that uncurling in his stomach, the itch to go listen to songs and map out the beats. Maybe this is what was supposed to happen.

He reaches to grab Frank’s other foot and then pulls until Frank gets dragged across the floor a tiny bit. “Weakling,” Frank declares, crawling the rest of the way and settling onto Bob's knees. “How are you gonna be a rockstar, being that weak?”

Bob rolls his eyes. “Don't call me that.”

“You're nervous!” Frank accuses gleefully.

Bob scratches his cheek and looks over Frank's shoulder, where Alton Brown is measuring out enthusiastic spoonfuls of sugar into a bowl.

“Hey. Seriously though.” Frank leans to the side to put himself into Bob's sight. “This is like, number one on your list, right? To record a studio album.”

“I can't believe you remember that,” Bob says, slightly embarrassed. “Also, if anyone asks, I don't have a list.”

“Fine. But you're gonna do great. And I'm not just saying that in a life coach or supportive - boyfriend kind of way.” Frank wiggles his fingers and says the word with a sort of joking flourish, rounding the vowels, exaggerating the consonants, but his cheeks tinge just the slightest bit red. Bob wants to tug him forward and kiss the hell out of him. Instead, he crooks his knees up - with some effort, because Frank isn't as light as he looks - until Frank slides down Bob's thighs and comes to a stop against his hips.

“Thanks.”

Now it's Frank's turn to look away. He fiddles with the collar of Bob's t-shirt. “Hey. Can I tell you something?”

“I'm trying to think of a situation where the answer would be 'no',” Bob says, eyebrows raised, a small quirk to the corner of his lips.

“Nah. I just.” Frank wipes his mouth, an unnecessary motion. “Sometimes I still wish you were in this band. Can't help it.”

“Yeah. Me too.” But Bob doesn't feel that heave of regret anymore every time he sees My Chem play. A twinge, maybe, when Frank and the guys are on tour and Bob is on the opposite side of the country, but now there's a small, tentative string of resolve running through him. Things worked out the way they should have; he made the right choice.

He does kiss Frank this time, leaning forward and angling his chin up, letting Frank meet him halfway.

 

*

 

Bob manages to open the door on the first try – the trick is to turn the knob and sort of lift at the same time – but this victory is overshadowed by him banging it open so hard that it sounds like the inside knob punches through the wall, and then he accidentally steps on the fucking inflatable palm tree that somehow keeps making its way out of its corner, which makes him stumble into the apartment while spilling a whole bag of groceries over the carpet.

The light flicks on. Bob immediately squinches his eyes up. “Bang, crash, crinkle, crinkle, ‘shit, fuck’,” Patrick repeats from where he’s standing next to the switch on the wall. His clothes are rumpled, his hat askew; there’s a blanket piled up on the couch, too. He doesn’t sound cranky about being woken up, though.

“Sorry. The goddamn door – with the tree,” Bob gestures, blinking rapidly. His eyes finally adjust when Patrick is already kneeling to shove boxes of Red Baron back into the plastic bag. “Thanks, man.”

He gently nudges the door shut with his foot and follows Patrick into the kitchen. It’s probably only a little past midnight but Patrick looks exhausted, rubbing at his eye with the heel of his wrist as he puts away juice cartons with one hand. Then again, Bob sort of is, too. His temples are buzzing with the residual static of pounding basslines, overlaid by the high-pitched whine of relative quiet. 

“You couldn’t even make it to your bed this time?” Bob asks as he smashes the frozen pizza onto the freezer shelves in creative angles.

Patrick shakes his head as a yawn overtakes him. He says, “Hey, I’m not the one who keeps pushing the couch closer to the door.”

“Five steps make all the difference, dude,” Bob replies from the depths of the cupboard above the sink. He balls up a bunch of plastic bags and puts them into the top drawer. After all the years on the road, living in disgusting conditions, it still freaks him out that he can be this domestic. Granted, there are piles dirty, crusted dishes in the sink and so many dried-over stains on the floor that it looks like part of the linoleum design, but still. He's putting away groceries with his fucking roommate, that's gotta count for something.

“It’s on the final stretch, right? The record, I mean,” Bob clarifies. He shines an apple on his shirt, tosses it to Patrick, and then shines another one for himself.

“Thanks. And yeah,” Patrick rasps, taking a few small bites. “A little more mixing on the last tracks and I think we’re good to go, barring some electronic disaster or Gabe Saporta flying down to piss all over the consoles or something,” he says thickly. “How was the show tonight?”

Bob shrugs. “Same. You know.” Doing sound at the Wiltern pays well, but it’s wearing old after a few months.

He rubs the hem of his shirt over the apple again, as if the motion will keep his mind occupied and prevent thoughts from voicing themselves. It isn’t a passive-aggressive silence because Bob doesn’t do that shit, but Patrick leans against the fridge door anyway, teeth crunching into his apple again as he raises his eyebrows and waits. Living with each other has given him the uncanny ability to know when there’s more to something. Or maybe that’s just because he’s been hanging out with Pete Wentz his entire life.

“I guess it makes me miss playing,” Bob continues hesitantly. “Like, an actual instrument. Makes me miss being out on the road, too, even though I’ve only been out with annoying motherfuckers.”

Patrick snorts softly, and Bob pauses before going on. “You know, sometimes – sometimes I think I should have – “ He cuts off, shaking his head a little.

“Should have pushed for the My Chem thing?” Patrick asks in a mild voice. Still, Bob winces.

“See, it sounds stupid if you say it out loud.”

“No it doesn’t. It’s understandable, too. I’d be surprised if anyone didn’t feel that way about playing, you know?” Patrick squeezes Bob’s elbow just as the front door jiggles for a few seconds before opening and closing, and the conversation veers toward an end instead of into ‘slightly uncomfortable existential talk’ territory.

“If we ever need a second drummer,” Patrick whispers. He points at Bob and grins.

“Yeah, if you ever decide to become a metalcore band, let me know,” Bob replies with a smile.

“Ooh, secret pow-wow in the kitchen, huh?” Frank appears around the corner, still wearing his coat. There’s been a freakish cold snap in the weather and he looks a little windswept, like he’s just walked in from fall in New Jersey instead of LA. He gives Patrick a high-five and aims a big smile at Bob.

“Yeah, now that the top secret talk is done, I’m turning in,” Patrick announces, throwing his apple core at the trash. He rolls his eyes and waves it off with a muttered “whatever” when it thunks off the rim and falls to the floor.

Frank giggles. “Good night,” he calls, and Bob repeats it, barely getting the words out before Frank is kissing him with cold lips and a warm tongue, fingers brushing high against the back of Bob’s neck where his hair is starting to grow out. Meanwhile, Bob is still holding his apple, squished between his and Frank’s stomachs. Frank pulls away, looking down with a frown, and then plucks it from Bob’s hand. He goes to take an enormous bite, but yawns in the process. Bob laughs a little.

“Hard work bringing home the bacon, huh?” he says.

“Shut up, I’m adorable,” Frank tells him through the vestiges of another yawn. Bob yawns this time, too.

“Stop it,” he orders, but the vehemence is lost through all the air he’s inhaling and the water welling up in his eyes.

“You’re not as scary as you think you are, you know,” Frank informs him, putting the untouched apple down on the dining table.

“Fuck off, I could kill you in my sleep. With my thumbs. Maybe only one of them.” Bob pushes him toward the couch. It takes about three easygoing shoves to get Frank to stumble down onto the cushions. He laughs the entire way.

“The only way you’d kill me in your sleep is if you accidentally punched out my eye. Like you almost did last night,” Frank adds, tugging on Bob’s belt until he falls over too.

“Lies,” Bob accuses distractedly, trying to detangle himself from Frank’s legs except Frank starts kicking around and making it almost impossible. “All lies. I sleep like a monk.”

“What does that even mean?” Frank yelps the last word when Bob shoves his thighs down with his hands and manages to extract his limbs intact. Now he’s lying completely on top of Frank and it could lead to them doing things on the couch that Patrick would definitely not appreciate, but Frank’s eyes are bloodshot and Bob is now yawning like he’s on a mountain peak and his lungs are starved for oxygen.

“God,” Frank groans, rubbing his eyes. “I’m sorry, but can we skip the dirty part and go straight to the passing out part?”

“We can if you shut up,” Bob says in response, tipping over to the side until he’s squished between Frank’s arm and the back of the couch. He kicks the blanket up until he can grab it, then tucks it up to their chins.

“No talking,” Frank agrees. He rolls onto his side to create more space, then mumbles, “The light’s still on.”

“Who cares.”

Silence. Then, “Hey, Bob.”

“Oh my god, what.” Bob talks with his eyes closed.

“Nothing,” Frank sighs. “Just wanted to say thanks for staying close by. I know you could be in Slovakia doing sound for some band right now.”

Bob cracks an eye open – Frank has both of his closed. He says, “Nah. Bolivia, maybe. But not Slovakia.”

Frank smiles. Bob finds his hand under the covers and squeezes once.

 

*

 

“Yo.” Bob hears Frank sigh in response, and shifts his phone to his other hand so he can press it against his ear more firmly. “Hello?”

“Bob.”

“Frank. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Matt left,” Frank says bluntly, sounding raw and tired and irate and sad, all at once. “Well, we – you know. Fuck.”

Bob manages to hold back his first instinct, which is to say, “Oh, shit.” He keeps silent instead. Considering all things, he’s not exactly sad to see the guy go, but the news that it actually happened is still sort of shocking.

“Frankie,” Bob finally exhales, but Frank plows through.

“And then there’s all this bureaucratic bullshit to deal with, as if dealing with it on a personal level – fuck, that sounds stupid, but. Yeah, as if dealing with it on a personal level isn’t hard enough,” Frank rambles on. “So there’s the whole thing where we don’t have a drummer, and then Gerard decides to get clean cold fucking turkey.”

Bob can’t help himself this time. “Jesus. So Gerard is…”

“Yeah. Japan was,” Frank searches for the right word and eventually just settles on, “fucked.”

Bob knows. He’d gotten the general idea anyway, when Frank had called him, the muffled noises of live music in the background, and the first words out of his mouth were, “I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”

“How long has it been?” Bob finds himself asking. He thinks of Gerard’s wild grin, the smell of his words tinged with beer or liquor.

“Few days. I don’t know what to do. It’s fucking terrible how all we can do is watch, and. I don’t know what to do,” he sighs again.

“I bet he’s being really good about it though,” Bob guesses, trying to dig them out of the pit of silence.

Frank laughs, a single huff of breath. “Yeah, you know him. He’s being a stubborn fuck. He’s more worried about finding someone to drum for us.”

Once again, Bob chooses not to speak. This is mostly how he works, just waiting around until the other person feels comfortable enough to get going again. A part of him is hoping Frank won’t ask. He tries to ignore the other part of him that wants to wave his arms – even though Frank can’t see him – and yell me, I can drum. It seems like a childish impulse, but Bob wonders if childish impulses ever really go away. Maybe what’s childish is actually giving in to them.

He doesn’t, anyway, which is what’s important because then Frank says, “We’ve been tossing around names.”

“Oh yeah? Who’d you come up with?”

“Lots of people.” Bob picks at a loose thread that’s poking out of the knee of his jeans as Frank continues. “I mean, you know Mikey. The kid knows like ten billion people who play each instrument.”

Bob’s jolted out of the conversation when someone yells, “Bob-ereeno!” and Joe Hahn clambers up onto the bus. In response, Bob kicks the wall and gives him the fiercest look he can muster up.

Joe Hahn clambers down from the bus.

“I suggested you,” Frank is saying. “Even though I’ve never heard you play, but I figured you wouldn’t tell me you played if you sucked, you know? Ray was really into the idea, too.” He laughs a little, mostly through his nose, but then it’s quiet again.

It takes a while to process that. All Bob can say is, “Oh.” Then he can’t help thinking, what about the rest of the guys?

He pictures Frank lying in his bunk, staring up at the ceiling with the sheets kicked down somewhere by his feet. His bunk curtain is probably closed. Everyone’s probably is, now that Bob thinks about it. Even though the dynamic was weird when Matt was around, now that he’s gone, it’s probably skewed off the fucking map. Bob knows they have a video shoot in a couple days. They’re currently without a drummer, and Gerard is in the process of shedding the past three years off his back. A stumble right out of the starting block; he wonders what’s going to happen to them as a band.

“But it’d be cool though, if you joined and all,” Frank says softly. He’s not trying to get Bob’s hopes up, Bob knows this, but still.

“You sound like you’re fifteen or something,” Bob smiles out. “It’d be cool if I asked you to prom and joined your band. Hey, can I copy your chemistry homework later?” He keeps smiling, like maybe it’ll actually make things funny. Someone had told him once that forcibly smiling tricked the brain into thinking you were really happy. Bob wonders who the fuck actually does that. Him, apparently.

“Fuck off, Bryar.” But Frank laughs. There’s a rustling noise, probably as he turns over onto his side, curling up with the cellphone resting precariously on his ear.

It would be cool. But this isn’t some high school band, where Bob could just show up to practices half an hour late with no qualms because everyone else was sitting around and getting high anyway, instruments untouched. This is – this is a fucking band, with techs and people like Bob working for them 350 days out of the year, this is a fucking band with thousands of fans the world over and websites dedicated to their favorite color. This is a fucking band with a rhythm guitar player that he is dating, albeit not continuously and not in a way that constitutes dinners out on the town and movie nights.

Frank doesn’t push the subject, anyway. Bob doesn’t know if he’s disappointed or relieved. He wants in, but he doesn’t – and he keeps thinking that maybe he wants in for the wrong reasons. So they don’t have to keep doing this phone thing; so he can lean down from his bunk and see Frank with a simple push of a curtain.

“Hey,” he says abruptly. “I miss you.” He knows that much.

“Yeah?” There’s a pleased but exhausted lilt in Frank’s voice. “You should, ‘cause I miss you too, fuckface.”

“I’m thinking I miss you more in the way someone misses their tumor after it gets removed,” Bob says thoughtfully.

“Whatever, you still miss me.” Frank sounds breathy now, like he’s almost asleep. Bob remembers coming back from Europe, how jet lag had kicked in so suddenly and without warning each time, sucking all the energy out of his body in a few meager seconds.

“Take care of him,” he says quietly, “and he’ll get through it. You all will.”

“Underneath that gruff exterior lies the soul of a soft man,” Frank narrates, like he’s doing a voiceover for The Discovery Channel.

“Go to sleep, Frank.”

“Yeah.”

 

*

 

They’re in Bob’s apartment in downtown Chicago, the one he moved into eight months ago and the one he’s moving out of in two weeks. He hardly has to do any repacking, since everything’s pretty much still in their boxes. There’s not even that many boxes in the first place, but Bob had still managed to put his foot through the tops of two of them when Frank had shown up and immediately assaulted him, the smell of stale airplanes and cabs still clinging to the collar of his jacket.

“Hey.” Frank walks his fingers up Bob’s arm, starting at his wrist and moving up to the crease of his inner elbow. For being terrified of spiders, Frank does a lot of things reminiscent of them, like skittering his fingers over Bob or skulking in the shadows to jump out at people.

Trapping people in his web. And stuff.

Bob blinks slowly, with effort. The bedsheets are warm and tangled on his legs, Frank is warm and tangled against his arm. “Hm?”

“Hey,” Frank repeats. He glances up just as Bob looks down, and quickly drops his gaze again as his fingers resume their journey. “So. Europe?”

“Europe, yes,” Bob agrees patiently. “That big thing on the other side of the world. You’re going there.”

Frank rolls his eyes. “No, like. Do you want to come to Europe with us? I mean, I’d like it if you did, obviously, but everyone wants you to.” He claps his hand around Bob’s elbow and presses a quick kiss right above it. “Even though we can’t pay you except with chips and salsa and blowjobs.”

“Not in that order, I hope,” smiles Bob. He’s scratching Frank’s scalp in slow strokes, filled with a stupid sort of happiness that leaves his fingertips slightly tingly, even though he’s kind of been expecting this to come up. He calls it good instinct; Frank calls it womanly intuition.

“Yeah,” Frank snorts. “Salsa and blowjobs. Maybe then you’ll know what it’s like to be Bert when he takes a piss.”

“Snap,” Bob says mildly.

Frank giggles, “Oh god, I can’t believe you just said ‘snap’.”

“Hey, if Gerard is allowed to call people ‘dawg’, then I can say ‘snap’,” Bob says.

Frank ignores him and says, “So? What do you think? Gerard was going to ask you, but he said I should butter you up first.”

“I guess I am sufficiently buttered up,” Bob agrees lazily. 

“See, job well done.” Frank has stopped moving around. Bob slides down until he can tuck his face into the shadow of Frank’s neck. It’s his favorite spot to be in, even though Frank claims it makes him antsy, to have Bob just breathing against his jaw like that.

Bob says, “Sure, of course. I could always stand to make fun of Mikey for three more weeks.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” Frank says to the ceiling. 

“Mm hm.”

“Mikey Way, huh.”

“Yup.”

Frank pulls back so he has room to see Bob’s face. Bob just smiles at him, small but genuine. “Fuck you,” Frank says, pulling Bob on top of him by fistfuls of his shirt.

“Well, you’re no Mikey Way, but.” Bob shrugs, and cuts off his own laugh when he presses his mouth to Frank’s. 

 

*

 

In the afternoon, right before soundcheck, Bob sees Gerard padding around in skeleton footie pajamas, the kind that kids younger than 6 years old wear to bed. Also within sight is Quinn, who is holding up the hem of his shirt as Jepha kneels in front of him and peers into his belly button, saying, “I don’t know, I think it’s stuck.” Meanwhile, Bert is curled up on the middle of the stage, apparently taking a nap.

Bob decides that he’s the only normal person currently on this tour. He walks backstage, trying to escape the crazy as if it’s contagious or before he gets roped into a terrible idea. When he turns the corner, Frank looks up at him from where he’s standing in a sea of cords. He’s clutching fistfuls of them in his hands, too.

“I’m lost,” he says.

“I can see,” Bob replies with a half-smile. He takes in the sight for a moment more, then moves toward him to pluck the silver-tipped ends from Frank’s grip. “Here, you want to put these in the back of the Roland. I’ve got them all color coded with tape.” He leans over the side and pushes cords into their respective slots, each one going in with a satisfying clunk.

“Oh wait, I got this one.” Frank grabs the remaining cord out of Bob’s hand, marches over to his amp, and plugs it in with flourish.

“Process of elimination. Did you learn that in college?” Bob asks.

“Nah, I dropped out before I got to that part of the curriculum,” Frank quips. “I guess I must have missed the part about using tape for color coding, too.”

“You uneducated Philistine,” Bob declares. He’s not 100% sure what Philistine means, but Frank laughs, which is worth it.

Suddenly, Quinn is hanging onto Bob’s shoulders, legs wrapped around his waist with no regard for whatever might be stuck in his belly button. Bob barely even budges. In the time he’s been with The Used, he’s learned how to center his gravity in a way that makes him practically immoveable, like a fucking Tai Chi master or something.

“Jesus, Quinn,” Frank says, clearly impressed. “You totally just jumped on him.”

“He can take it,” Quinn says right against Bob’s ear. “Right, Bob?” He pats Bob’s cheek with one hand, sacrificing his grip and sliding down a little.

“Get some new tricks, dude,” Bob says in response. He shakes Quinn off the rest of the way and roughly hands him his guitar, but the corners of his mouth are twitching. Quinn takes his guitar and walks off; Frank smiles at Bob, as if he knows something he’s not supposed to.

It’s this image that sticks with Bob as the show starts and My Chem begins to play. They sound as urgent as ever, Gerard’s lyrics spilling all over the place as the bass oozes through, but somehow it all comes together. Nothing’s really tight and on, but then again, being a little sloppy goes with the crazy energy of the band.

After the show, when there’s the routine flurry of movement of people packing everything up, the click-clack of wheels as amps get rolled out, Bob finds Frank crouching down by the guitars, carefully placing each one into its case.

“Hey,” Bob greets.

Frank glances up and then stands when he sees Bob. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing.” He wonders how many times Frank has heard what he plans to say, and figures he hears it enough. But what the hell. “I just wanted to tell you that was a really awesome show,” Bob says in what he hopes is a sincere voice.

Frank grins anyway, open and happy, and punches Bob’s shoulder. “Yeah? Hey, thanks.” He’s got this easiness about him, something about the way he stands or gives you his full attention each and every time. A kind of quiet self-confidence and sureness about himself that Bob doesn’t see often in the scene. If he does, it’s to an extreme and comes off as cocky and generally asshole-ish.

Bob smiles at him for a moment too long, then wanders off outside to smoke a cigarette. It’s not unheard of for him to get a junior high-like crush on bands he tours with, but it does make things way more annoying. The only outlet he allows for himself is staring intensely at them, which people assume is a glare of impending death instead of attraction, and he’s fine with that misunderstanding. Thing is, Frank doesn’t seem the type to jump to that conclusion. Or even if he is, he doesn’t seem the type to let that deter him from anything.

There’s a whoop from behind him, and that’s the only warning he has before a weight drops onto his back. Bob automatically hooks his hands underneath the knees that come around his hips, almost dropping his cigarette.

“Wow. I had to see for myself. You really aren’t surprised by anything, are you?” Frank asks, craning his head around to try and look at Bob in the eye.

“Once you’ve been on tour with these guys, I think you’re prepared for pretty much anything.” Bob hefts Frank up higher as Frank locks his knees in up around Bob's ribcage. Then he kicks his ankle against Bob's thigh. 

“You do know that this is now going to be my official mode of transportation.”

“No, come on,” Bob groans, because it's what he's supposed to say. He's already walking toward the cluster of vans and trailers, pausing every few steps to let Frank adjust his grip.

“Cigarette please!” Frank announces. Bob holds his lit one over his shoulder, letting Frank take it with his lips. He inhales, blows out smoke, and says, “Thanks,” all at the same time, except it comes out as “Tanks” and Bob's pretty sure that he's in over his head with this kid.

“Hey, kid,” he says out loud. “I hope you're paying for the ride.”

And this is when he learns just how bold Frank is - not in a leering, cheesy way, but with how he says things in a simple and matter-of-fact tone: “I'll repay you some way or another, Bryar.” He has one arm hooked around Bob's neck and uses the other to hold the cigarette to Bob’s mouth. Bob inhales off it, noticing that Frank times it perfectly so that he pulls his hand away just as Bob is ready to release the smoke from his lungs. 

“Teamwork,” Bob says. 

Frank nods, takes another drag. “We’d make a good team.”

 

*

 

Bob can’t believe he agreed to another tour circuit with The Used.

It’s the first day of tour and the damage in the venue is like this: there are fresh Pepsi stains on the wall of the dressing room, someone had lit firecrackers in the hallway earlier, which had left half the crew – including Bob – with ringing ears, Jepha’s pants are not on him but in a crumbled heap next to the double doors leading outside instead, and they’re half an hour behind schedule.

Also, the venue is confusing as fuck, so when Bob opens the door to what he thinks is the bathroom, he actually ends up in a smaller second dressing room with just enough space for a small couch and a vanity mirror, which the leader singer of My Chemical Romance is currently staring at. 

“Yo, Cortez!” he yells before raising his eyes to Bob’s reflection and saying, “Oops.”

It seems rude to back out of the room without responding, so Bob looks at him dumbly instead. “Who?”

The guy turns around and says, “Oh hey, are you Bob?”

“Yeah?” Bob says mistrustfully.

“Bert told me about you. He said you’re angry but loveable. Like a grizzly bear cub,” the guy says with a thoughtful look, tilting his head to better study Bob and his likeness to grizzly bear cubs, presumably.

Bob stares at him. “What?”

“Yeah, like, you have a tendency to claw at people’s faces but they still want to hug you anyway.”

Fucking Bert. Bob decides to at least try and have polysyllabic answers. “That’s – reassuring.”

“Isn’t it?” the guy says in a dreamy voice.

Right then, another vaguely familiar guy passes by in the hallway. Bob grabs his arm before he can make it out of range.

“Whoa, what’s up.” The guy blinks.

Bob says, “I think I found one of yours,” and pulls on his arm a little to turn him around.

The guy’s face relaxes once he sees who’s inside. “Gerard! Jesus, I was looking for you.” He walks into the room, sliding easily out of Bob’s grip. Having successfully diverted the attention to someone else, Bob begins to leave but then Gerard starts talking again.

“Hey look, Frank. It’s Bob.” Gerard points at Bob, and Frank obligingly looks. With the two of them huddled together like that, both gazing at Bob – Gerard with apparent delight, Frank with a mild curiosity – Bob thinks he knows what monkeys in zoos feel like.

Then Frank says, “Hi Bob, I’m Frank.” He sticks out a hand. 

After hesitating for only a second, Bob takes it.


End file.
